The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free
This month we set up our new Canary Indoor Wireless High-Definition All-in-One Home Security device to see how it worked for us and to give you our thoughts on it. So far, I’m liking it. It has a lot of features to help me monitor my home while I’m out, gives me the ability to sound sirens, call for emergency help, watch live views of my home while I’m gone, has motion detection, and even uses HomeHealth Technology to monitor the temperature, humidity and air quality of my home.
Set Up Canary and Netgear
Setting up the NetGear and the Canary were easy. I was impressed. While I don’t do all the technical stuff, my husband had it pulled out and plugged in fast. My favorite thing about the NetGear is that this high-performance router was built to support 10+ connected devices. This is important in this household of online work, online school and homeschooling. You can also prioritize devices for streaming videos or music, and included advanced features for lag-free gaming which makes me happy because I’m always looking to prioritize devices!
When the NetGear and Canary were hooked up, my husband handed me my iPhone and told me to go install the app and get it moving. It was user friendly and the most time we waited on anything was for the software to connect to my phone and update the Canary. Then we were in business.
I still haven’t figured out what to set up next to mine. This is the spot we used to keep a stack of cookbooks and a few knick knacks. Now, after seeing the inspiration image below provided to me for this post, I feel like I need to up my game! For now it sits solo on the credenza.
When you set up the Canary you want to make sure you set it on a flat surface that can see a good portion of the house. We set it up to basically see the majority of our living room, the family room, a portion of the kitchen, it can see both front and back doors, it sees up the stairs to the hallway, and overall, it covers pretty much all of our house. If someone is moving around in there, it’s going to catch it.
How Canary Works
I haven’t had the Canary set up long enough to see the full effects of it’s smart technology, however in a nutshell, Canary learns the basic movements that occur in you home and the more you use it, the better it gets at detecting real threats instead of false alarm notifications caused by the movement of pets or other activities.
Using the Canary app on my iPhone I can monitor my house using a live feed, which I found out that by tapping my screen I can also zoom into a place if I want to see it a bit closer. The app also stores different moments in video for me to review on my own. I have the options to sound the alarm from my phone or call emergency services.
We decided to add my husbands phone into the Canary app too. With having us both on the system, we can send text messages, call or email each other directly from the app, and we now both have the ability watch the Canary feed and get notifications. There is also a way for us to comment back and forth to each other on specific videos the app stores.
Don’t worry about night time use, we shut all the lights off in the middle of the night to try this feature out and I was blown away by the night vision! It comes out like an extremely clear black and white picture. It’s fantastic. You can see everything you can during the day, just without the color.
Uses For Canary
The main use for Canary is to keep your home secure and monitor for any activity that shouldn’t be happening in your home, such as a break in. It makes it easy to receive a notification, sound the alarm and call for help, even when you’re not at home. I love that I am in complete control of how to handle a situation.
The Canary can also be used to monitor older kids at home alone to make sure they are safe, and also keep an eye on other caregivers who are watching your kids.
I was happy to learn that since the March 2015 launch, nearly 75 known burglaries, home invasions, caretaker abuse and other emergency situations have been captured by Canary, resulting in multiple arrests. This is fantastic news and means Canary is working.
Who Should Use a Canary
Just about anyone can benefit from the use of Canary. It’s intended for residential use, and for a single Canary it’s best used in an apartment or small home. We qualify as the small home. If you have a bigger house, you’ll probably want to invest in more than one Canary to make sure there is proper coverage. Another use I thought of is for an office or business. It’s a great way to keep track of any intruders into your business or after hours occurrences.
What is your favorite feature of Canary? Tell me in the comments below.
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